Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators

HSM Global recently hosted a webinar with Dr. Vijay Govindarajan of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth in the run up to the World Innovation Forum, and has been kind enough to post it online. Here it is:

One of the main points of the webinar is that managers need to consciously look at how they allocate time between:

When Dr. Govindarajan speaks of the future, he is speaking about planning ten years out.

He asked webinar attendees how they allocate their time between the boxes, and the unscientific results were that 92% of the participants spend up to 90% of their time in Box 1.

According to Dr. Govindarajan, the rule of thumb for a world class company is to spend 50% in Box 1 and 50% in Box 2/Box 3. Even in a recession the ratio should still be no more than 70-80% in Box 1 and 20-30% in Box 2/Box 3.

His research shows that the economic expansions following recessions usually last about three times as long as the recession, and that the best time to prepare for expansion is during the recession. The competitive landscape usually fundamentally changes after recessions.

"I help organizations increase their organizational agility and accelerate their speed of innovation and organizational change.

If you're looking to create a culture of continuous change, tackle some of your innovation barriers, train your employees to be more innovative change agents, or to build a more profitable, more social business -- let's talk."